Font Glossary

The way in which a text is placed in a column or on a page, for instance,
flush left and right, etc.

Alphabet:

All letters of a language. The English language alphabet has 26 letters.

Alternates:

Several fonts include additional ligatured forms, alternate lowercase letters, and lowercase within uppercase combined forms. The alternate forms were designed to give words a slightly more animated and informal appearance and to lend more interest to type composition. Because of their decorative quality, they are best used in moderation.

Ampersand:

The ligature & was developed by scribes as a shortcut combining the letterforms e and t,
the word et meaning ‘and’ in Latin.

Anti-Aliasing:

Bitmap rendering (of type or any other graphic object) in which pixels are rendered solid (i.e. on) or negative (i.e. off) or a number of shades between these two extremes. Anti-aliasing (also called ‘greyscaling’) has the effect of visually smoothing the edges of objects, making the bitmap rendering appear to be of a higher resolution than it actually is. Anti-aliasing also makes it possible to render more complex shapes that would otherwise not be legible.

Antiqua:

The ’round’ faces of the Latin alphabet, as opposed to broken letters. The capital letters are based on ancient Roman letter forms, the lower case letters on the Caroline minuscule.

Apex:

The juncture of two converging strokes at the highest point of a letter. For example: A, M, W.

Arabic numerals:

The numerals, 1, 2, 3, we usually use.

Arm:

Short horizontal or oblique stroke that is free at one or both ends, as in E, F, K, L, T.

Ascender:

The part of certain lowercase letters that extends above the x-height as in b, d, f, h, k, and l.